As part of Gloucester History Festival in September 2021, Gloucestershire Archives is working with Fresh Air Foundations and renowned British Jamaican photographer, Vanley Burke, to create a participatory community project – History, Her Story, Their Story, Our Story.
The project aims to build on Gloucestershire Archives’ black history collections, engage the local community and develop local artistic talent by collecting creative responses to the question ‘when was the first time you saw a black person?’
Vanley Burke is mentoring four Gloucestershire artists – lyricist, recording artist and photographer Rider Shafique; writer and performance poet Thembe Mvula; musician and creative Phil Campbell; and spoken word artist and poet JDPL.
The artists will lead collaborative workshops with schools and community organisations in Gloucester to preserve and record people’s unique oral histories, before transforming their responses into a series of artworks and spoken word pieces to be presented as part of Gloucester History Festival in September 2021.
This project is expected to be an important step towards Gloucestershire Archives’ aims to meet the needs of the wider community and ensure that the voices and memories of under-represented communities are accessible to both current and future generations.
For more information, call (01452) 425295.
